Mayday
by yaruna
Summary: Duo is just out of luck when he is in the air and air traffic controller Heero has to bring him down safely. Heero POV. One-shot.


Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or it's characters.

Main pairings: 1+2 (implied 1x2)

Genre: Angst maybe? Romance if you squint really hard. You might catch some humor... depends on your sense of it of course. Fine, I'll admit it, I've got no idea which genre this might fall to.

Warnings: I am not a pilot, nor an ATC, therefore it is inevitable that some of the "facts" in this fanfiction are incorrect! It hasn't been beta-read either...

Summary: Duo is just out of luck when he is in the air and air traffic controller Heero has to bring him down safely. Heero POV.

Edit: I've explained some more words that I use in the fic, at the bottom.

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I suppose that many would wonder about my choice of work, and all I could really tell them would be that "I like being in control". I never told them what a rush it was to get planes to follow every command that I gave, even when I was commanding them into a potentially deadly situation. To have planes lining up in a straight line for the final approach, just a hair's breath above three miles between each other. To see a space of six miles between small planes and think "what an incredible waste of airspace" and go ahead to bring a third aircraft in between them. You never hesitate, you just tell them what you want them to do, and then watch it be done. When they deviate it just makes it all the more interesting.

I don't think about the targets as lives per say, if I did it would drive anyone mad, and I had only been on the job as a licensed air traffic controller for almost two years. To go down the pipes after two years wasn't exactly something I was looking to do. The pilots were just voices that I heard through my headset; they were a necessity to get my commands through, but I don't think that "if I screw up, they'll die". They are my tools.

I had never hesitated. I had never thought of a pilot as a person. All that changed when I got one voice through my headset.

I was working in TRACON at the early hours, meaning there wasn't much traffic, and I only had a small Cessna and Piper to keep track of that were in my space. I was bored but kept diligent watch over them, and when I saw the Cessna's altitude start to drop rapidly I immediately keyed up my mic.

'November niner zero four two three, climb and maintain eleven thousand.'

I got no response, and saw the target losing altitude, with a ground speed close to nil.

'November four two three, climb _immediately_!' I said and felt my supervisor stand over my shoulder. 'November four two three, low altitude warning, climb _immediately_ to eleven thousand.'

That's one thing you have to realize as a controller; you don't fly the plane, only the pilot can do that, but apparently, this one didn't. Or so I thought, until I saw the aircraft's altitude level out and it seemed that at least somebody was at the controls.

'November four two three at seven thousand, climb and maintain eleven thousand.' I said again and expected to see the aircraft climb, but it kept going at the same altitude.

'Doesn't he have a radio?' My supervisor asked and I shook my head.

'I spoke to him earlier. Nothing sounded wrong.' I muttered.

'Piper niner zero, fly heading of zero two zero.' I said into the mic and got a quick "zero two zero" as a response.

'Cessna, november niner zero four two three, do you read me?' I asked when I saw the plane start to climb, slowly but surely upwards.

'Er...' I heard in the headset and was surprised at myself when I breathed a small sigh of relief and got a happy slap on the back from my supervisor who was also listening on my frequency by then.

'Sir, you need to climb faster, you are surrounded by a mountain.' I said quickly.

'I'm kinda trying here, but I'm no pilot.' the voice said and I stared at the little blip on my radar for the split of a second.

'You're... never mind. Pull back on the yoke just a bit more than you're doing now, sir. Just take it easy.'

'I'm assuming the yoke is what I'm holding on to...' The voice said and I saw his rate of climb increase, but it was still too slow to get away from the mountain.

'Can you climb any faster? You need to push the throttle as well, sir.'

'All right. I can see that mountain now...' He said and both me and the supervisor swallowed as we saw the blip on the radar go closer and closer to where we knew the mountain was.

'Holy crap!' I heard a scream in the radio then, and almost flinched, believing that what I heard were just the last words from this person before the inevitable crash.

'Sir? November four two three.' I said, finding comfort in the fact that I could still see him on the radar, however only some feet away from the mountain.

'I'm fine!' He laughed. 'I might've given some goats a new haircut though.' He chuckled and I couldn't help but letting out a small snort.

'They needed it I'm sure. I show you at niner thousand feet now, sir. You need to climb to eleven thousand.'

'Do I still have to climb as quickly?'

'No sir. Slow is fine.'

'Good. I think I see which panel shows how high up I am.' He said, and I swore I could hear a grin in his voice. Nothing actually suggested that he'd ever been feet from crashing into a mountain.

'Piper niner zero, expect four left, contact Tower on one two one point niner.'

'Point niner... Get that kid down safely.'

'Doing my best, sir.'

'I resent that.' The not-pilot in the Cherokee chuckled and I saw him level out at eleven thousand feet. 'What... do I do now?'

'You just keep flying straight, we have to get you away from the mountains, then I'll take you in to the airport.'

'Okay.'

'Sir, what happened to the pilot?'

'Er... He just went unconscious, fell over the panel and we started to dive.'

'Is he still unconscious?'

'Yeah, I can't wake him.'

'That's fine, we'll get you down. Have you ever flown a plane sir?'

'Er... no. I've only ever been in one once before.' He answered and I felt my heart sink. How in the hell were we going to manage this?

'That's fine, sir. We'll get you down.' I said, feeling a lot less confident than I sounded and picked up the red phone to get all our emergency resources out to the runways.

'Hey. If you don't, it's my fault, not yours.' He said then and I blinked, still telling the emergency dispatch what the emergency was.

'Although... if you mind getting me away from all these houses I'd be glad. Don't feel like killing someone else is all.'

'You can start a slow descent and a turn to the left... now.' I said and was amazed at how quickly and easily he did what I told him. If I didn't see it on my radar, I wouldn't have believed it. If I had gotten this person now, I wouldn't have thought he'd never flown before.

'Stop turn now.' I said, taking his exceptional reaction time into account and wasn't disappointed when I saw him immediately stop the turn.

'Keep descending slowly, sir. I'm taking you in on a long final for the runway.' I said and heard the person chuckle over the radio.

'I don't even know what that means, but I'll trust you. And stop with the whole sir deal. I'm Duo.'

'Duo then.' I said and almost shivered but didn't because I knew the supervisor would try to pull me. I really had no desire to know this person's name, because that made him more real. You could compare it to a computer game if you will.

'So...?' Duo said and I didn't know what he wanted and was about to ask when he keyed his mic again. 'What's your name? I wanna know who I'm gonna thank later on.'

'Heero.' I said and smiled when I heard the surprised chuckle on the other end.

'As in hero? That fits!' I'd thought he'd get a kick out of that.

'I'll teach you how to pronounce it when you get down.' I said and was shocked at myself. What the hell was I doing?

'Sounds good!...' He chuckled and I think he accidentally kept his mic keyed in because the next I heard was "Come on, Howie... ya gotta wake up now and land this thing. Pa?... Shit."

I swallowed deeply when he stopped transmitting and immediately knew why I always thought of the aircrafts as the general term "targets".

'Duo, you need to be careful and not key in the mic unless you have something to say to me. I need you to start a left turn again now.'

Just as before, he was quick to comply.

'Sorry, hero.'

'You might want to keep from calling me that until you're down safely.' I chuckled and got a surprised glance from my supervisor.

'Nah. I want to have the chance to actually say it.'

'Stop turning. You should be able to see the runway in front of you.'

'Oh, is that the one with all the flashing red and white lights?'

'That would be the one.' I said and contemplated telling him to switch frequencies for a moment until my supervisor put a hand on my shoulder.

'Run up to the tower and you can watch him.' he said and I was quick as hell in running up to the tower and was immediately handed a new headset that was already connected to the frequency I had Duo on.

'Thanks Trowa.'

'All right, Duo. Can you tell me what speed you're showing right now?'

'Er... Where is it?... Never mind. It's at one hundred ten.'

'Do you know how to bring it back to eight zero?'

'Yeah, I can do that.' He answered and I really would have given anything to know just how he knew what controls to use, but there wasn't actually any time, and I figured he'd just looked enough at the pilot that he just knew, or that he'd been experimenting in the air.

I explained to him how to get the landing gear down, and how to get the flaps up and he just immediately understood. I knew student pilots that would have more problems than him finding everything he needed.

'And pull the yoke back...' I said, looking intently out the window at the small aircraft that was a few feet above the ground by then when a windshear warning went off in the background and the plane was pushed down harshly on the runway by the wind and it caught the right wing of the plane, lifting it up and then dropping it down on the left wing.

'No!' I heard Quatre call in the background and I realized everyone in the tower were looking at the small Cessna as they'd stopped all other operations while getting him down.

'Duo?' I asked tentatively into the mic, as I saw the plane skidding across the runway with sparks flying everywhere. 'As soon as that plane stops, you need to get out.' I said in hopes that he was still listening to me and of course that he was going to be in a position to get out on his own.

'The fire kinda told me that all on it's own.' Duo's sarcastic voice came back and I think I laughed a little. At least the horrified looks that the other controllers gave me told me I had. But then the nose gear of the plane crashed and somehow the combined force of wind and speed and leverage from the broken wing and the nose that were all in the ground made the aircraft roll over and it skidded just a few feet more before it came to a stop. It immediately began to flame up and the trucks were already getting to the scene.

'Hero?' A weak voice said in my headset and I swallowed deeply.

'Get out of there! Now!'

'I don't think...' He coughed. 'I don't think I can.'

I sank down in a chair, unable to look at the burning aircraft anymore.

'Not! Not your fault.' Duo said weakly and I rested my head in my hand, feeling myself shaking.

They got him out of the plane and to a hospital. I didn't know much more than the fact that he'd survived, because it had been all over the newspapers. The pilot however, that had apparently been his father hadn't made it. It was also the first time I learned that Duo was only sixteen years old, and he'd done a better job in bringing that aircraft down than many others I'd seen. He never did contact me and I didn't try to get in touch with him either, because he'd shown me how easy it was to lose control over a situation. Or rather, how hard it was to really be in control of every situation.

But I think I learned all the more for it. I do still think of pilots as tools, or as means for getting my game to flow smoothly. But in the back of my head now, I always have the fact that there are people in those aircrafts. I can't give them faces, but at least now, I can manage to know them by name, because I think, they can't come up with anything worse than what Duo did against me.

I really didn't think I would ever hear his voice again. I had thought that if I did hear it, I would recognize it immediately, but he proved me wrong, four years later. One of the few that have ever done that might I add.

It was pretty much at the end of the rush hour and I was working in the tower again together with Trowa and Quatre, all of us had just recently gone onto our shift. We had a few F-22 aircrafts doing some low training in our area, annoying quite a few pilots when their TCAS went off, and we heard about it from pretty much all of them, even though they had been warned before even flying in to the area that military aircraft would be in the vicinity.

'You'd think they'd just stay out of the area.' Quatre chuckled, talking about the rumpled pilots when he'd unkeyed his mic.

'Naw, they want to see the fighters up close.' Trowa said, making me smirk.

'Just not quite _that_ close.' I threw in before clearing another aircraft to land.

'Sanq tower. This is... Sierra Alpha niner six four niner.' One of the F-22s I quickly surmised and raised an eyebrow at Trowa and Quatre. It wasn't like we'd been on a stuck mic while saying that. Besides, I would've thought the fighter pilots would've gotten a kick out of it.

'Sierra Alpha four niner, this is Sanq tower, say your request.'

'Yes... Mayday, mayday, mayday.' He said and I heard him chuckling slightly, making me wonder just how serious he was. Hell, just the fact that he'd had me ask for his request made me doubt this mayday call.

'What's the nature of your emergency, sir?'

'Flameout on engine two, I'll need to land.'

'Roger.' I said and quickly informed everyone we had an incoming emergency. 'Sierra Alpha four niner, we have a cable on runway one three right, or the longest runway is five left at six thousand feet, sir.'

'I'll go for the cable. And hero, you still don't have to call me sir.' I was seriously left blinking, wondering what the man was going on about until it clicked. I shouldn't have been surprised. With his reaction time he would make the perfect fighter pilot.

'Duo.' I acknowledged. 'How much fuel do you have on board?' I asked and began to vector him in towards the runway when I got the answer, all the while vectoring the other aircrafts to either land and hustle off the runway or to stay up in the air and handing them back to approach.

'We really ought to stop meeting like this though, hero.' Duo said, chuckling and I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

'So get the aircraft down correctly this time around.'

'Ouch. But yeah, I could take a coffee when I get down since you're offering so kindly.' I was seriously wondering where this guy got the breath to talk while trying to steer his aircraft to a safe emergency landing. But I kept giving him vectors and advisory on the wind until I saw him through the window, some 15 miles away, along with a second F-22.

'Affirm you have a wingman?'

'Not for long.'

'I'm not leaving you here!' A third voice said on the frequency.

'I'm sure they won't bite. The ground might though.' Duo said sounding chirpy but I could start to hear the strain in his voice. 'Besides, you're about to hit bingo. Go back to base, Wufei.'

'Your second is on fire!' The wingman grumbled and then I saw him bank to the right and fly away. I could only assume that he'd been ordered back to the base by a superior officer.

'All right. This is gonna be a bad one. Affirm you have emergency vehicles standing by.'

'Affirmative.' I could feel my heart beating wildly and wondered if he would survive this again. Hell, I wondered if I would survive this again.

'Ah, I see the lovely blinking lights now. Somehow this feels familiar.' He said and I shook my head.

'I don't think my nose gear is down, it's showing green but it doesn't feel right.' He said through the mic and I immediately grabbed my binoculars and was just barely able to see that the nose gear was indeed up.

'It's up.' I said and kept looking as Duo brought the gear up again and then put it back down. The nose gear fell down with the others and again I breathed a sigh of relief, something only Duo had gotten me to do, even through all of the emergencies I'd gone through after his.

'It's down now, though I can't know if it's locked. Do you still want the cable?'

'Yeah, I'll take the cable. I'm gonna come in fast, my first engine is failing.' He chuckled.

'Don't crash, I don't need a vacation this time around.' I muttered and raised the cable for him.

'If this gets audited you're gonna get sacked, Heero.' Trowa chuckled, making me snort. The FAA could audit all they wanted, though Duo would probably be just as sacked as I.

'Sierra Alpha four niner. Cable is at three thousand feet. Wind zero eight zero at eight, runway one three right, clear to land.'

'Runway one three right, clear to land, Sierra Alpha four niner.' Duo responded back and I think his first engine flamed out just as his tires touched the ground. He kept the nose high, and I think he intended to try and break the aircraft down as much as possible by just using air resistance, without actually putting the nose gear on the ground. He dropped the hook which added to the sparks that flew from the back of the fighter jet.

'Duo, get out of there when you stop. Correction, get out of there now!' I changed when I saw flames start to envelop his plane from the tail.

'Unable!' Duo answered and I had a moment where I thought my heart would stop. 'You guys wanna keep that tower, right?' He chuckled and set the nose down on the ground. The landing gear held and I found myself holding my breath when I watched the hook catch the cable. He came in just a little to fast and I wondered if the cable was actually going to hold. It did, but the nose gear didn't and the nose of the plane hit the ground hard, creating even more sparks. The entire fighter was enveloped in flames in a split second after having caught that cable and come to a stop.

'Get out!' I called into the mic but I didn't have to, and I'm not sure he heard me, because I saw him eject just as I opened my mouth.

'I'm not sure if that guy has the best of luck or the worst of it...' Quatre muttered and cleared an aircraft for takeoff on another runway.

'I think that's still in the air.' Trowa chuckled and watched with me as Duo fell closer and closer to the aircraft with his parachute. The firetrucks were already dousing the aircraft with foam and the flames were starting to die down anyways but Duo landed only a few feet away from the aircraft and was immediately helped out of the chair and up by a firefighter.

'The best it would appear.' I smirked and we stopped looking and got back to our normal duties again, helping Quatre to clear up the delays that had been created while taking care of the emergency.

Ten minutes later we were relieved by the next shift and we got up to go for our break. What I saw in the door however, made me stop dead.

A young man in a flight suit, with his helmet under his arm, was leaning casually against the doorway with a cocky smirk on his face. He had a long braid hanging over his left shoulder. I think it was a chestnut brown, but it was a bit hard to tell with the black spots that were over it. Despite the black spots of ash in his hair, on his face and on his flight suit, he was the most gorgeous man I had seen in my twenty-five years that I had been alive.

'So. How about that coffee, hero?' He asked in a smooth voice. He didn't sound quite like he did on the radio. There was just a subtle difference but he sounded sexy in the confines of the tower. But then again that might have been because I was actually seeing him, able to put a face to the name and voice.

'No.' I answered and grabbed my jacket, as I wondered if I really should have said no.

'Hey, You offered.'

'If you got down without crashing. You screwed up the schedules.' I answered and he gave a surprised laugh, a wide grin covering his face, his white teeth a stark contrast against the black ash in his face.

'Fine then, hero. I'm just gonna have to go through another emergency then.' He chuckled and turned to walk away. I floundered as I tried to come up with something to say that would make him stay but I had never been good with this kind of social situations. I liked it when I could predict what was coming.

I opened my mouth to talk only to realize that Duo was already gone. Trowa and Quatre were both looking at me in some odd disappointment that I don't think I'd seen on either of them before.

'Well... go after him then.' Quatre smiled and I took a deep breath before running down the tower after the pilot, hearing Trowa and Quatre laugh at me all the way down.

Duo had taken the elevator and I was down on ground floor before he was and waited outside of the elevator. When the doors opened, Duo was standing slumped against the wall in the elevator, his head bowed down and I realized that he might actually had been hurt in the crash after all. Who wouldn't have been? He gave a deep sigh and pushed away from the wall and took a few staggering steps that made me want to reach for him to help.

In the end, I did, and I thought he would hurt himself even more, twitching around to see who had just taken a hold of his elbow. The surprise on his face when he saw it was me was gold, but the genuine smile that he got on his face a second later was priceless.

'I figured I needed to tell you how to pronounce my name.' I said and almost wanted to slap myself.

'So I don't need another emergency?' He said in some amusement but there was a bitter undertone to his voice.

'I don't think you'd survive another one.' I answered honestly and he chuckled.

'Great. I think you owe me a coffee then.' Duo grinned widely and looked me square in the eyes. 'Heero.' He finished and I shook my head but happily led him towards the nearest coffee shop, only vaguely wondering what they would think about anyone coming in there smelling like smoke and fire. But then Duo looked at me again with that smile and a sparkle in his eyes and I didn't worry about anything anymore. I didn't worry about anything ever again, except perhaps Duo having to make another mayday call.

The END

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TRACON – **T**erminal **R**adar **A**pproach **CON**trol. Controllers working approach and some other positions sit here. It's sometimes attached to the tower (as in this story). en .wikipedia .org/wiki/Terminal_Control_Center

Flaps - Slows the speed of the aircraft without having it stall. en .wikipedia .org/wiki/Flap_(aircraft)

Bingo – pretty much the point where an aircraft have to return to base or it won't have enough fuel to get back.

Windshear – Windshear is a horizontal or vertical change of the wind. For Duo here a change in 30 knots of the wind in airspeed would be considered windshear. en .wikipedia .org/wiki/Wind_shear

TCAS – Traffic Collision Avoidance System. Tells pilots if they are too close to another aircraft. en .wikipedia .org/wiki/TCAS

Flameout – pretty much what it sounds like. The jet engine stops working. en .wikipedia .org/wiki/Flameout

FAA – Federal Aviation Administration. The guys that hire the controllers, they make the rules and have regulations for pretty much everything. www. faa .gov/about/mission/activities/


End file.
